A teaching assistant at a Brooklyn elementary school says he was fired after he was arrested while protesting outside of Columbia University during last month’s encampment demonstration.
James Parra, who worked as a paraprofessional at Brooklyn Arbor Elementary School in Williamsburg, was helping lead a protest on 115th Street and Broadway outside of the embattled campus on April 22 in support of students who had set up camp on the grounds when within minutes he was taken into custody.
Parra was chanting while a cohort banged a drum near a locked gate as part of a small band of fellow protesters when an NYPD officer asked them to stop and engage in a dialogue. Parra seemingly refused to acknowledge the cop and he was swiftly arrested along with the drummer. He received a summons.
But later, Parra wrote on Instagram that he was fired by Brooklyn Arbor following his arrest amid what the school said was an outcry by parents.
“After 8 years of dedicated service, and after 6 months of doxing and harassment and Zionist parents making themselves the victims my superintendent, just a few moments ago terminated me from my position,” he wrote on Instagram.
According to the New York Post, Parra received more than 850 complaints about him, including wearing a keffiyeh in school and previous inflammatory posts regarding the Israel-Hamas war.
The firing led him to unloading with anger.
“F—k these Zionists and f—k these administrators who are complicit and sympathizers with Zionism and genocide,” Para wrote. “I hope my work children and my work son know I love them with all my heart, and this isn’t how I wanted to say goodbye.”
The 27-year-old teacher’s firing came after Columbia University’s protests made national headlines when NYPD officers were called upon by school administration for the first time since 1968 to clear protesters from campus grounds. Things escalated when students broke into the Hamilton Hall building, forcing police to return to the campus and make mass arrests.
